Vancouver’s boundary-pushing Theatre Replacement, known for its performance works that include the one-on-one plays Bioboxes and the PuSh Festival hit That Night Follows Day, has been named as the recipient of this year’s $60,000 Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award.

The company will use the production fund, which is the largest award of its kind in Canada, toward the creation of The Greatest Cities of the World, a multimedia performance piece based on interviews conducted by Theatre Replacement artistic director James Long with citizens of the small Tennessee towns of London, Paris, Rome, Athens, Bogota, and Moscow. The piece is to be premiered at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre in 2010.

Last year’s winner of the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, which rotates annually between the disciplines of dance, theatre, and music/opera, was Wen Wei Dance, whose new work Cock-Pit opened at the Cultch yesterday (February 24) and runs to Saturday (February 28).